Crying Question
by Okoriwadsworth
Summary: Something ... weird just happened to Laurel Lance. Can Oliver Queen help her understand? Or will she be too busy hating him to listen?
1. Crying Question

The Crying Question.

(Author's Note: This is for the "Canary Cry" day in Lauriver week. This is a S1 AU. Here, well, the particle accelerator explosion happens in Starling City right as Oliver goes to meet Laurel.)

_**8 Years Ago in Starling City…..**_

Laurel Lance was angry. As she saw the news footage telling her that her damnable boyfriend Oliver Queen was alive, and not consigned to an ocean-based hell, she was angry at him for having been the one who did survive. Her sister had gone on the boat with that CHILD, and she was the one who had drowned in the ocean instead of him.

Absentmindedly she noticed that it seemed like everyone else in CNRI was looking at her, so she wondered if her inner monologue of anger had bled out into actual speech. Looking around, then, she realized to her dawning horror that the reason everyone was staring at her was far worse than her mind-mouth filter had sprung a leak.

HE was here. Looking tall, with short blond hair and an expression that seemed broken, Oliver Queen stood in front of her with sorrow in his eyes.

She was still angry, though. Angry as she had a right to be for what he had done to her. Later, after everything that happened, she could find herself being amused by this. But in the moment, she felt anger coursing through her veins like molten steel. So, she stomped over to him and grabbed him by his collared shirt and literally dragged him outside of the building into an alley.

As they made it to the alley, though, she idly noticed people leaving over their cars and running into buildings. Turning to see what was going on Oliver tried to pick her up and take her back into the building, only to see Laurel shove him out of the way and begin to scream in his face about how he didn't get to touch her ever again.

Right then, however, Dinah Laurel Lance heard a boom and was sent flying into Oliver Queen before they both fell back-first against a dumpster. Before she passed out, though, she could have sworn she heard him say "I failed you once, and I won't do it again."

_**The next morning…**_

She had absolutely no idea where she was. As she woke up, Laurel Lance looked around and suddenly felt a lump in her throat that felt like there was another person in there somehow. Shaking that off, there was one thought in the front of her mind. She needed coffee. If she was going to figure out wherever in the holy hell she was, her mind needed to be awake.

Then she saw it. Sitting on a chair next to the cot she had been asleep on was a coffee cup, made to the exact order she always had whenever she had bought coffee for herself and…. OH SHIT.

Oliver. She was angry at him, sure, but he had saved her. She was sure, in her bones and soul, that she'd be dead right now if not for him.

Getting up, noting with no small amount of fear that SOMEONE had dressed her in what looked like a gray t-shirt that had Russian and Chinese writing on it and black sweatpants, she wandered around this open area looking for either a door or someone to explain what in the world was happening.

And then, like a vision, she saw him. Her ex-boyfriend, the man who saved her life. Only he wasn't like she remembered.

For one, he wasn't in the bag on cheap beer and chicken wings. Looking at him now, she thought he hadn't had beer or wings in five years. Oliver Queen was well put-together now, in a way he hadn't been before.

Secondly, he had a bow in his hands and was firing them into tennis balls from what looked like a rapid-fire cannon of some sort. What she knew about archery could fill a shot glass and have room left over, but this looked like somehow he had developed a tremendous set of skills.

Quickly, then, her mind worked on pulling the pieces of this situation together, aided by coffee. She was in an abandoned warehouse somewhere. Oliver Queen had taken her here, and Oliver Queen was an archer.

Could he be…. Trying to do something with those skills, and asking for her help?

But why would he be asking for her help? Didn't he know she still hated him?

In this moment, she knew what she had to do. The best part of having dated the man in front of her, who was currently firing arrows into tennis balls, is that she knew what he responded to.

"Oliver Jonas Queen!" she yelled, and then when she noticed something. Two things, actually.

She could literally SEE the soundwaves coming out of her mouth. That was new.

And then, after that was done, she glanced over at Ollie. He was crumpled on the floor, not hurt. He was having…. Was that a panic attack? Oh no. She might have been angry with him, but that wasn't an excuse for her to try and drive her into a panic.

As she went over to him, she realized she didn't hate him anymore. He had tried to save her life, at the cost of his own.

"Ollie. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you like that. Tell me about what this is, though. Can you do that for me?" begged Laurel, expericning a strange need to know that he's ok.

"While I was on that island, Laurel, I found a purpose. One day, I'll tell you how I found it. But for right now, I just… I need to save this city. But I can't do it, and lose myself. I need you. Ever since I could remember, you've always seen something better in me. DO you want to help?" asked Oliver, and in that moment, she knew she had a decision to make.

She could leave, forget she saw any of this, and work on that weird thing that happened when she yelled.

Or, she could stay and help Oliver do what he said he would try to do.

In the end, there wasn't even a question.

"Yes. Yes I want to help."

Laurel Lance had no idea what she was in for.

The next morning….

Laurel Lance woke up and noticed that Oliver Queen was perched on her windowsill, with a gym bag and an impossibly healthy-seeming breakfast in a plastic container. Shaking the sleep out of her eyes, and thanking god that she slept dressed this morning, she frowned when she realized that yesterday wasn't a nightmare.

Taking the breakfast, and grabbing a mug filled with green tea to go with it, Laurel rolled her eyes and simply said "What's first, drill sergeant?"

"Laurel, I didn't ask you to help to come around and be a drill sergeant. I had to deal with people like that, on the island, and I hated every last second of it. We're going to start with the basics. After you have breakfast, get showered and get dressed. We're heading on a little trip to see a friend of mine in Havenrock" Oliver said, with that slightly amused glint that both did THINGS to Laurel and made her worried for her health.

"Who is this friend? And did you sleep with her on the island?" she asked, more accusingly than she might have initially intended.

"Of course I didn't. Bringing Sara on that boat was, without question, the dumbest thing I ever did. I swore an oath to never touch anyone but you, ever again. Besides, I'm not her type. The person I'm bringing you to is how we'll deal with that scream you had" Oliver said, and Laurel could tell he had become something of a planner.

She liked that about him. Hell, she was finding she liked HIM again.

So she had breakfast, and they went.

When she got there, she embraced Dr. Eunji Pak of the Seoul branch of Queen Consolidated's applied sciences division and Laurel got to work.

And she screamed. She knocked down a pallet of wood, crushed the windows of a Honda Civic about 150 yards away, and broke several panes of glass.

After she broke that last pane of glass, before Oliver handed her a pitcher of iced tea with liberal amounts of honey in it, she did the only thing she could think of.

She leapt into his arms and hugged him. She had started on the road to understanding her cry, and she had Ollie back. Things were ok.


	2. These Are My Tools

Crying Solution Chapter 2: These Are My Tools.

(Author's Note: I know that the story was marked as complete. But, as I looked at it, I realized that there was so much more I wanted to do. So, I'm doing it.)

On a sun-kissed bed in the top floor of a penthouse in the heart of Starling City, Laurel Lance woke up and immediately felt a deep sense of contentment that she hadn't felt in a very long time. She hadn't realized exactly how much anger she had been holding onto ever since she found out Oliver had taken her sister on that boat. But just by screaming in that field in Havenrock until her throat went raw, she could find herself beginning to let it go. Sure, she'd always wonder what Sara had that she didn't, what temptation must have been provided to ensure that he would have done that instead of just going alone.

But as she asked herself that question, the door to her bedroom opened slowly and in walked a sheepish-looking Oliver Queen. Apparently, while she slept, he had gone about the business of making her breakfast. And this looked magnificent. A bowl of fresh-cut strawberries, next to a strawberry smoothie and an apple fritter. In addition to that, a 3-egg omelet and home fries.

As she tucked into her breakfast, though, her mind began to rev up. Why was she here in this penthouse, and not back in her own apartment? Furthermore, what were all those people doing behind Oliver's shoulder? Did he think she didn't see them?

Seeing all of those thoughts flash across her mind, even as she did her best to hide it.

In that moment, though, Oliver Queen saw them all and he decided, once again, that honesty would carry the day here.

"Laurel, I know that there's a lot you want to hear from me. Even more, there's a lot of questions you deserve the answer to. So, how about this? Finish your breakfast, and we'll go to the other place and I'll answer every question you've got" he stated sheepishly, thankful that he didn't leave her a knife or any implement sharper than a fork.

"Fine, Mr. Queen. But what are those people doing behind you?" she stated, the hint of a smirk on her face as she began to drink her smoothie.

"Oh, that. I just had them put in a top-of-the-line home gym and security system. Whenever you want to be here, if only to get away from work and relax, this is a place where you can feel safe" he smiled, wanting so badly to make her proud of him again that it almost hurt.

"Ok. I'll eat breakfast. You should get showered. I get the sense you have something truly interesting planned for me. Naughty" smiled Laurel, and Oliver shivered for a moment at what he thought was a terribly flirtatious wink in there.

_**A few hours later, in the Foundry…**_

Laurel still couldn't believe this. She genuinely couldn't. The man who had left her on that dock five years ago was absolutely gone. Sure, this person in front of her had his name, and all the relevant documents to indicate that this was Oliver Jonas Queen. But nothing about him, not one single thing, was the same.

But as she thought of it further, that was a good thing. This new person in front of her wasn't selfish, or arrogant. If anything, he was actually overly humble. But the big difference was that he wanted to include her in his plans. The old Oliver took perverse glee in setting up grand surprises, and never letting her know what was going on.

"So, what are we doing down here, Ollie? Some other part of your grand plan?"

"Every day for five years, I was in hell. I learned all I needed to know about the man I really was, beneath the beer and the partying. And I learned just how bad this city actually is, and how good of a job everyone does at hiding it. So, and this is why we're down here, I'm going to make sure the rot that is beneath the fancy balls, and the gleaming outer shell, is burned out one inch at a time. But I can't do it alone. I know, more than I'd like to, about what trying to do something like this would make me. I need you. I've always needed you. But if you agree to help me, and I hope to god you do, down here we can't be what I want us to be to each other" he blurted out, terror evident in his voice at the thought of losing the one and only person who could keep him from completely losing his humanity.

"Oliver Jonas Queen, I am not going anywhere. I will help you. So tell me, what are we actually doing here?" she said, hands on her hips.

"We're training. I'm keeping up on my archery. You? Walk over to that gym over there and tell me what you see" he said, all traces of the warmth he had shown her earlier in the day gone as it is now quite clear it is business time.

"I see what looks like a barbell, a whole bunch of free weights and racks, and a whole bunch of bags and dummies. What is all this stuff _**for**_?" said Laurel, confusion evident in her tone from across the room.

"Dinah Laurel Lance, you need to, in no particular order, learn how to fight, and get stronger. How, precisely, did you think you were helping me? This is what I meant. You and I together, like we should have always been, doing what you've always known you could do. Saving the world. One inch of our hometown at a time" he stated confidently, setting up three tennis ball machines as he drags his brand-new lime-green compound bow that he uses for practice out of its silk-lined case.

And they did train, in companionable silence. As you might expect, training was easier for Oliver than it was for Laurel. She had never really exercised seriously before, minus that damnable president's physical fitness challenge that just about every high school student in the continental United States had been honor-bound to take. But as she thought about it further, it filled her with confidence to know that Ollie wasn't babying her, or giving her little pink weights and thinking that would be enough. No, he believed he could throw her in the deep end of the pool and she'd survive.

So, she did. She started out small, as Oliver came to coach her on the proper movements for the weights and walk her through sparring and drills he had learned in his five years away, and ones he had happened to find by calling around to previous contacts he had made. As the day went on, they began to move in unison. Laurel struggled a little bit less and less with lifting heavy weights, even managing to squat 185 before lunch, while showing a true aptitude for the Laotian variant of Muay Thai called Muay Lao as well as traditional Muay Thai. Meanwhile, Oliver had managed to dot an entire wall with arrow-pierced tennis balls courtesy of his practice bow that he was seriously thinking of taking out into the field.

But he wasn't going to eat lunch down here. This was a bunker, a place built for the sole purpose of training and preparing to be the dark instrument of justice he had to be. His life, and specifically the one he wanted to build with her, could not exist down here. This was, in his mind at least, an office.

So, he waited until she finished her last rep of deadlifts and then told her they were going out for lunch.

"But, Ollie, don't I need more training?" she said, through panting breaths as she has never worked herself this hard before. Honestly, she loved it. It was a cousin of how she felt when she won a case she had no right to. Chasing that feeling, through this, was always going to be something she wanted to do now.

"Being down here, Laurel, is like work. It's like going to your office and working. It's good to do work, but your clients have to matter too. And for the foreseeable future, every man, woman, and child who lives in this city is our client. We are beholden to them. We swear our lives, our very souls, to make sure they have a chance at a better life. To save this city, Laurel, you have to love it. In order to love it, you have to live in it and understand who REALLY matters here, and who is sucking its blood and lifeforce away a bit at a time. That's why we're done for right now" said Oliver, sounding like someone who actually cares which again struck Laurel as markedly different than the man he used to be.

So, she took his hand and they left. And if she was being honest, she was looking forward to hearing about all the places he had discovered, the secret joys that the city had to offer.

_**A few hours later….**_

Dinah Laurel Lance was stuffed. She could not believe the place Oliver took her for lunch, a 12-seat Sri Lankan restaurant that looked very much like the type of place where more money was spent on bribing the health inspector than was on décor. But when they walked in the door, everyone there seemed to know Oliver like he was a family member returning home. They cooked off of the menu for him, treated him specially, and even gave him bags of fresh spices from back home. If this was a representation of the city Oliver wanted to save, the city no one seemed to know about but him, she could see why he fought so hard for it.

But after they were done, and he left a truly staggering 45% tip, they walked through the streets of the Glades towards the bunker again in no specific hurry.

"This is why, isn't it? Places like that restaurant are going to die if we don't do something. I want to help you, in all the ways you need helping, Ollie. But I need something from you, just like you need something from me" she begged, needing this to be a serious answer as they were about to have a very serious conversation.

"Anything for you, Laurel. Always, until the last breath I have, anything you need I will do my best to make happen" smiled Oliver, unshed tears glistening in his eyes. He knew what this was going to be about, and he had drilled himself on the apology in his mind until it was second nature. And so, of course, she asked him the ONE question he had never thought to try and answer. Honestly, the one question he had never thought of.

"What was it about her that made you take my sister on the boat? What did she do, or say? I'm not mad at you for it, Ollie, not anymore. But if I'm going to be part of this with you, I need to know what it was" she sobbed, tears leaving her eyes at the thought of somehow being not good enough for him.

Before he answered, Oliver opened his arms wide for a hug which she happily took as he kissed her on the forehead. "It was never you. It was always me. I was young, and stupid. I didn't know the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness was that little bit of rush that came with having Sara. Joy? Joy was every moment I spent with you. But when I was that kid on that boat, I didn't know the difference. I do now."

"That is the best answer you could have given me, ever. I love it" smiled Laurel, standing on her tiptoes and kissing Oliver on the lips warmly. "Now back to the office. I want to see how strong I can actually get."

_**Back at the Office…..**_

While Laurel kept doing deadlifts and squats, promising herself that when she got strong enough she'd try that salmon ladder thing Oliver had been so fantastic at doing, Oliver opened up his father's book and started transferring names into a spreadsheet on one of the computers in the office. Taking a break, drinking from a cold bottle of water, she saw a name she recognized.

And here, she FUMED. She had remembered Adam Hunt, idly, from investigators in the DA's office who had told her how he was stealing money from city and state pensions to fund elaborate vacations and high-rise apartment buildings he was holding for Saudi and Emirati sultans to live in. If there was a person who more thoroughly represented the rot in their city, she could not think of one.

"Him, Ollie. You have to start with him. He steals money from public pensions, people who keep this city going, and just hoards it for himself and his friends. There isn't a better choice. But, Ollie, you can't kill him. Killing him won't solve the problem. It won't make it so people know that justice can be hobbled but it won't be stopped. You have to make him face justice, Ollie, and killing him won't do that" said Laurel coolly, her blue eyes confident as she tries to make her boyfriend see reason.

"You're right. I'm not killing him. But, from this day until his last, I want to make sure he looks over his shoulder. Every transaction, every choice, I want him to wonder if this is the day his house of cards comes crumbling down. I'm going to take the money he stole from those pensioners, and I'm going to make sure he pays for his crimes" stated Oliver confidently, grabbing one of his "work" compound bows and a quiver filled with every specialty arrow he can think of and quite a few ones that are simply terribly sharp.

"When are you going to do this? Because, if you're going to bring down Adam Hunt, I want in" states Laurel calmly, knowing Oliver won't resist her.

"A week, Laurel. We need to make you a suit, get you ready to fight people, and get you a codename. Can you wait a week?" says Oliver, putting his "work" bow away and thinking he ought to make sure that router arrow he had been working on was ready.

"Yes, Ollie, I can. I've got the name too. How does… Black Canary sound?"


	3. The Archer And The Bird

The Archer and The Bird.

(Author's Note: This is the final chapter of Crying Question. There will be lots of ass-kicking in this fic, and general sweetness and romance. This is what Laurel and Oliver should have been the whole time.)

_**8 Years ago, …**_

In the week before their first mission together, Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance went deep into the minutiae of their new lives. First on the list of said intricacies was that new members were thought of for addition to this crusade. At first, he was against it wholly. Saving the city was their responsibility, and he was utterly sure he could not find anyone who cared about it as much as they did.

And then he got kidnapped. It galled him after he got free, and was forced to kill his kidnappers to ensure his family remained safe, that he hadn't had enough situational awareness to see the trap closing around him. So, because he knew he needed a set of eyes that would see as his did, he agreed when Walter and his mother said that he needed a bodyguard. All he asked of his mother, Moira, was that he personally review the candidates. The reason he gave her was that the person who would be his personal security would have to spend a lot of time with him, so it should at least be someone who he could have a warm relationship with.

This, of course, was only a small fraction of the reason. The rest of it was down to his night job, because that was just as important to him. He knew the training he was giving Laurel wasn't enough, and he couldn't have lived with himself if she got hurt due to some error he had made. So, one impossibly early morning over Turkish-style coffee rich with cardamom and honey, he pulled out the manila file folders of everyone who had been picked. But before he started to work out who he wanted; he did the only thing he could.

"Laurel? We're going to do this your way. Mind coming over to help me pick out who it should be? I've got coffee, and I think I can make you French toast with caramelized peaches?" he said, a smile on his face at the mere thought of spending more time with his Black Canary.

"Of course, Ollie. We need to find someone who can train us both, and who loves this city like we do. Maybe we should have interviews" she stated confidently.

"We should. But we can't be too specific. And, now that I think about it, we probably shouldn't be talking about this over the phone. Come over. Breakfast will be ready soon" said Oliver, heading over to the stove to get things started.

_**A few hours later….**_

Laurel Lance had found it. To be sure, it had taken her 4-and-a-half hours and copious amounts of French toast and that GLORIOUS coffee to do it. Honestly, one day, she was going to use all of her considerable charms to inveigle that coffee recipe out of Ollie and re-purpose it for her needs when she was up all night reading statutes.

Nonetheless, after reading through more dossiers than she ever thought she'd have to, she found it. More to the point, she found him.

"Ollie! I got it. John Thomas Diggle. Three tours with the Army Rangers in Afghanistan, more medals and commendations than we know what to do with, and also…. Lived in Starling City until he enlisted. Lives here now. I think this is our guy" says Laurel confidently, handing the file over to her boyfriend even as she spears a stray bite of French toast from him.

"You know what? This is good. For a bodyguard, this is perfect. But how do we convince him about, you know, the other thing?" Ollie says, wagging his finger no when his girlfriend tries to sneak past his defenses for another bite of his French toast.

"Anyone who serves three tours in the Army, Ollie, knows about duty. They understand it in their bones, and they want to do the right thing. This, saving a city no one really knows is rotten but us, is about as right a thing as you can do" she says, and Oliver Queen begins to see the point.

To do this, it can't be about vengeance. Vengeance, he idly guesses, is like throwing potato chips into a fire. The grease causes the fire to flash hot for a minute, but there's simply not enough mass to have any genuine effect. Instead, a nobility of purpose is what's needed. And despite his money, despite everything he knows he can do and give, removing the putrefaction from his city feels like the best purpose he has ever had.

"Let's call him. I get the sense, though, we're going to need a special trainer for you. Maybe you could hire, I don't know, a personal assistant" Oliver says, the tumblers of his plan dropping together in his mind.

"Who do you have in mind, Mr. Queen?" she says confidently, truly impressed by her boyfriend's quick thinking and razor-sharp intellect.

"I got the chance to meet a few people while I was on the island, and a couple of them said they'd help me with my mission when I told them what it was. One of them was named Talia Raatko, and she's as good a martial artist as I have ever seen. She can train you, and me, up to those standards. I think that could be good for both you, and her" he said, hugging her tight as he simply needs to hold her to remind himself that he's alive and through those dark times.

"Ollie? I know you always worry that somehow, you've become a monster because of what you endured. I can see it in your eyes, the fear you have that this will all be a dream. But it isn't. Everything you went through made you the man you needed to be, the man this city deserves. And just so you know, from this day until you and I both have no more days, I will always love you. Always" said Laurel, snuggling up to him in the Queen Mansion breakfast nook.

And that, as it turned out, was exactly what he needed to hear. Oliver Queen had become a world-class archer, a skilled hand-to-hand fighter, and a top-notch interrogator. Every last one of those skills, however, came at a heavy price. The heaviest of which was his self-esteem and belief in himself. He didn't think of himself as anything other than a monster.

Laurel Lance, though? She saw him as better, as the representation of everything Starling City had once been before her eyes were opened to its true nature. And, if she could do nothing else, she needed to remind him of that.

So that meant the 2nd thing they had to check off was the costuming.

"You and I both want to save the city, Ollie" she said in something of a non-sequitur, although she supposed he knew where she was going with this. "But you can't save it wearing green that's so dark, it's almost like black. You need to be a force for good, a light that people can see even in their darkest times. I think you need to wear the green of emeralds, of growing grass, of the green light that tells people to move forward."

"You know what? I think you're right. The hood I was given on the island, the hood that I will wear to honor those who sacrificed their lives to ensure I could save my city, that was never that bright. But everything else? That can be" he said, already conceptualizing wearing and being something brighter. He knew he'd have to intimidate people, to be a figure of fear to those who thought that their money and resources meant that they didn't have to fear anything. But the everyday citizen? They didn't need to be scared of him. They could sleep at night, knowing someone was looking out for them.

And right at that moment, maybe for the first time since he returned from the island, he felt something like normal.

_**That Friday….**_

Ever since their decision, they had and prepared for every contingency. After bringing John Diggle in, aided by a trip to a local Tunisian restaurant that had treated him with superlative kindness, they asked him to be their armorer and quartermaster, a job he took on with tremendous skill. Mr. Diggle had even made their uniforms, tailoring them to both carry their hand-to-hand weapons and to be as resistant to blades and bullets as the technology of the time indicated they could be.

When Talia Raatko arrived, having created a perfect cover identity as a recent émigré from Morocco who was only all too eager to work in the field of law, Laurel's fight training and skills rocketed into form. Soon, she was an equal of her teacher herself.

Despite all of that, the previous day, Oliver and Laurel had thought about not wanting to have to do this. Raiding someone's office and setting them up to be arrested by the FBI and INTERPOL was not something they took lightly. So, before they did anything, they grabbed Adam Hunt out of his limo and attempted to make him see the error of his ways. They told him to return the money he had stolen, and give over his buildings to people in the city who could use them to get a 2nd chance. He told them to go fuck themselves.

Well then, that pretty much left only one decision. They were going hunting. And they told him as such, and that they'd come back to take his money and return it to those who needed it.

So, at precisely 9:45 PM, Oliver Jonas Queen and Dinah Laurel Lance shared one last intense kiss at the welcome-back party Tommy had thrown for them before sneaking into an out-of-the-way alcove and getting changed. Oliver into an emerald-green Kevlar vest with a quiver of 36 emerald-green arrows, and green leather pants upon which all of his flechettes were placed in bandoliers. Meanwhile, Laurel dressed in a blonde wig, black Kevlar tank top, and bare legs covered by what appeared to be Kevlar fishnets. Oliver loved this look on her, but now was absolutely not the time for that. Work had to be done.

Despite knowing what was likely to happen, they both hoped. Nonetheless, at 2 minutes to 10, they checked their phones and groaned when they realized the money had not been returned.

So, at precisely 10 PM, the Green Arrow and the Black Canary snuck into the garage of Adam Hunt's high rise and got to work dealing with the security. Laurel dispatched her targets with well-timed blows with a polished wooden staff, and flurries of kicks and elbows. Oliver, for his part, landed devastating punches and arrows in non-lethal areas that would still hurt like hell. He knew Laurel would hate him with the fire of a thousand suns if he killed, but she didn't say a single word about making every thug in the city fear seeing him coming.

Eventually, they made it to the penthouse. They had run on adrenaline and the sort of simpatico thinking that comes with having been romantically linked with each other since they were teenagers. But here, at the top floor, the true scope of what they were doing dawned on them. Because as they waited inside the elevator, John Diggle used the cameras he had installed in their uniforms to inform them that they were about to plunge headlong into two regiments of disgraced members of the elite Egyptian counter-terrorism unit known as Unit 999. This would prove to be a problem.

But, as they kissed one last time with as much fear in it as love, they cut through those units with arrows, and high-level hand-to-hand combat. Finally, there they stood. Behind them, two regiments of elite Egyptian special forces lay staggered, beaten, and useless. In front, a terrified Adam Hunt. Nodding her head, Laurel watched as Oliver fired an arrow into the wall right behind Adam Hunt's head.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Hunt. In about 15 minutes, the FBI and INTERPOL will be walking through that door. Please feel free to explain to them where you got the money to hire these soldiers, all ejected from Unit 999 of the Egyptian Army for taking bribes and conduct unbecoming an officer. We told you we would take your money, and you wouldn't like how. This is how" smirked Laurel, before both she and Oliver flew out on a grappling arrow he had fired to a nearby building.

Once they got down, they smiled. This was what they knew they needed to do. They would be together the whole time. No one, no person, could pry them apart.


End file.
